


what happens after the end of the world

by tentententententententententen (diaphanousveil)



Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, in the hospital, recovery from VoTE 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-01
Updated: 2019-05-01
Packaged: 2020-02-15 18:31:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18675154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/diaphanousveil/pseuds/tentententententententententen
Summary: Naruto and Sasuke are placed in separate hospital rooms, but they're long overdue for a sleepover.





	what happens after the end of the world

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mangosharingan](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=mangosharingan).



> Inspired by this text post from mangosharingan on Tumblr.
> 
> https://mangosharingan.tumblr.com/post/184388656845/ugh-naruto-staying-in-the-village-wo-sasuke-is
> 
> Thanks for letting me use this idea!

Naruto is lying in bed, picking at his bandages. He wonders if Sasuke is still awake. It’s a hot night for October, and he can’t sit still long enough to fall asleep. He’s been in bed pretty much the entire time since Konoha’s troops made it back to the village. He slept through all of last night and most of today, which means that although his body still needs rest, he’d much rather be training or running around to let off steam or sitting down to a bowl of ramen.

 

He turns over in bed to look at the clock. It’s indecently late, but Ichiraku’s is probably still open for a few more minutes. Old man Teuchi sometimes keeps the stand open late into the night when there are a lot of visitors from other hidden villages. Even though he knows it’s a bad idea Naruto almost considers running down for a bowl of ramen, but Sakura’s hypothetical rage is a terrifying thing, and he probably would have to have to hurry to eat the whole bowl before closing time. Ramen deserves to be enjoyed. 

 

He turns to his other side, wincing at the resulting pain. It’s strange, how he leans on his arm only to find there is no arm to lean on. In all his years of reckless fights and subsequent hospital visits, he’s never had quite this feeling of absence and permanence: a permanent absence. It’s going to be a long hospital stay.

 

Naruto is certainly familiar with the hospital by now. He’s been the occupant of nearly every room in this wing at some point, but every time he’d fight tooth and nail to get out as quickly as possible. Tsunade and Shizune and Sakura could beg, plead, reprimand, chase, fight, or forcibly restrain Naruto all they wanted, but he’d always manage to leave early and he’d never suffer any lasting consequence. 

 

Having the Kyuubi inside him has given Naruto an advantage on healing. He always wants to get better, get stronger as quickly as possible, and Kurama was always ready to siphon out chakra as Naruto healed. Up until now, it had always seemed urgent to get going again as quickly as possible. 

 

Now, Naruto is distantly aware that there is no urgency. Sasuke is back (Sasuke is home!) and Naruto’s chances at becoming hokage are no more the ridiculous, desperate dream of an outcast child but a near absolute certainty. Naruto is perfectly content—or he should be. 

 

To be honest, he’s hot and itchy and his skin is oversensitive from lying in bed so long, and his bones ache. His arm isn’t even there anymore, but the ghost of it is writhing. And Sasuke is back, but Naruto has barely seen him since they woke everyone up and an ANBU squad took him into custody. Officially, Naruto hasn’t been told he can’t see him, but between his own recovery and Sasuke’s there’s been little time for seeing each other. He’s here in the hospital now, according to Sakura, but Naruto has been strictly ordered to bed, and moreover surrounded by earnest well-wishers every waking moment of the day. 

 

Well. There’s no use pining after ramen, but Sasuke is inside this hospital and there are very few people capable of keeping Naruto from finding him. 

 

Very carefully and quietly, Naruto gets up out of bed. He slips into the hallway on tiptoe, keeping an eye out for any medic passing through the halls. Naruto’s distinctive fashion choices have begun to haunt him now that he’s famous enough to be recognized whenever he’s noticed. 

 

After some trial and error, he reaches Sasuke’s room. The door is open and he recognizes the shock of spiky black hair that could only be one person.

 

__________________________

 

Sasuke has been lying in bed for hours, thinking about how much his bandages itch but not moving at all to fix them. He’s had his eyes closed for hours, but it feels like much longer than that. He has a massive headache. At least the relative darkness of the hotel’s night lighting is easier than the constant brightness during the day, but the nurse on duty walks by every half-hour with a chakra-infused light that hurts his eyes even if he keeps them closed. 

 

He’s supposed to keep his eyes closed as much as he can. There are few people left in the world who have much medical knowledge of the sharingan, and fewer still who know anything about the rinnegan newly purpling his eye. Failing to have any useful medical advice, the medics impose restrictions on him. One thing they know: he has major chakra exhaustion, which is even more dangerous than the wound that left him without an arm. 

 

Of course, everyone has chakra exhaustion after the war, after being cocooned into a chakra-sucking semi-sentient tree that apparently was the source of chakra in the first place. Team 7 had more than its fair share of depletion. After a fight of frankly ridiculous proportions, after becoming one of the two most powerful humans on earth, Sasuke used up everything he had, and more than he had. So had Naruto, but the jerk is probably already half-healed by now. Not everyone can house a giant fox spirit to lend them healing powers. In Sasuke’s half-conscious state, he’s weirdly upset at Naruto for healing so quickly.

 

In spite of it all, Sasuke can’t remember the last time he felt so relaxed. He’s been sleeping his bare minimum for months, ever since he left Orochimaru’s lair. Now he can’t do anything but sleep, and he is even a bit grateful as he acquiesces to the frustrating luxury of too much rest.  As much as he’d love to get out of Konoha as quickly as possible, he doubts he’d have the energy to get very far.

 

He hears Naruto coming in, but doesn’t say anything. Naruto sort of hovers just past the threshold of the room, and for a while Sasuke wonders if Naruto is just going to silently stare at him all night. Sasuke doesn’t twitch, doesn’t blink, doesn’t move. 

 

“...”

 

“...Hey, Sasuke…” Naruto whispers at last, “Are you awake?”

 

Sasuke slowly half-opens one eye, then closes it again. 

 

“No,” he deadpans. Naruto laughs, that same wry laugh he’d used when he told Sasuke that if they fought again they both would die. The memory aches in Sasuke’s head now. 

 

“Alright,” Naruto says, turning to go. “I guess it is pretty late. I’ll come see you tomorrow.” There’s no trick in his voice, and Sasuke opens his eye again.

“Wait,” he says, “You can stay if you want to.” Naruto’s face lights up with joy disproportionate to the situation. “Don’t get your hopes up for any more heart-to-heart conversations. I’m just barely awake as it is,” Sasuke warns. 

 

He’s not sure he could endure another heart-to-heart conversation like the last one they had. It’s been years since the last time he let himself cry in front of another person. Not when he killed a man for the first time. Not when he left the village, not even when Itachi died, although he remembers it was raining both of those times and it had felt like crying. After years of keeping back his anger and his grief and his love, Sasuke feels  _ known _ for what seems like the first time, and it scares him.

 

“Alright, I guess it’s a sleepover, then.”

 

Sasuke fails to fully process the meaning of Naruto’s words. He is startled— _ not alarmed, startled _ —when Naruto lunges. His eyes snap open and he is fully awake, fully aware of how suddenly Naruto came so close to him. 

 

“Scooch,” Naruto says.

 

“Scooch?” 

 

“Yeah, scooch, I don’t want to sit on the floor.” Sasuke just looks on, bewildered, as Naruto appropriates well more than half of the hospital bed that was made for one person, and not a very broad person at that. He reaches for one of the pillows and Sasuke fends him off with a glare. Naruto grabs for the pillow again and Sasuke stretches out his left hand to punch Naruto—except that his left hand isn’t there, and instead he finds himself falling and then lying at an awkward angle half on top of Naruto. Their eyes meet. 

 

It’s impossible not to laugh. They’re squished together by virtue of being in the same bed, squished even closer because of antics. Sasuke is covered in bruises and bandages. Naruto is covered in bruises and bandages. The bed is a mess of bruises and bandages. Here they are, the two strongest ninjas in the world. Pretty ridiculous.

 

Sasuke looks at his friend, his best friend, the one who was willing to give up his life for Sasuke’s sake. The one who had, in fact, given up his arm for Sasuke’s sake. The one who had never given up on Sasuke, even when Sasuke had given up on any hope of happiness for himself. He looks into Naruto’s eyes just a little longer than he should before moving his eyes to the safety of examining Naruto head to toe.

 

“You look terrible,” Sasuke says at last. Naruto looks terribly offended.

 

“Hmph! You look way worse than me, believe it.” 

 

They lie there for hours, drinking in the warmth and safety and companionship they both have craved for so long. When a fiasco of nurses go looking for Naruto in the morning, they find them both cradling each other, fast asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry my writing's a bit rough. I'm still pretty new to writing fic. There's more story but I'm not sure if I'm going to write out more so please check out mangosharingan's text post, and let me know if you think I should continue. Thank you for reading <3!


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